Why I’m Switching to Stainless Washers

One of small things that make building a boat here easier than in lovely places like Canaries is the fact, that you can order pretty much anything and it will arrive to you day or two days later…
I have no idea how much now 1 inch A4 stainless penny washer co_sts per unit in a chandlery these days, what I know is that if I would charge half of it reselling stuff from our supplier it would still make quite nice profit 😜

And since we need 150 of them for any single piece of hull sides - coming very soon! - I’m replacing stock of useless mild steel ones with stainless.

One may ask why, since it is not staying on the boat - and that would be a very good question. One I didn’t think of before sheathing lower hulls, for which I used mild steel ones with about 50 stainless I ordered with screws when I ran out of washers. And then I discovered that there is a huge difference. Mild steel ones, as the name suggests, are rather soft. When using screws to press them they work very well, that’s fine, but the problem starts when you try to get screws out. Since they are soft they are getting deformed by screws and it is next to impossible to grab the screw head if the screw gets stuck (common occurrence with Philips - some 30 per 150 if mild steel ones, 5-10 per 150 if stainless A4) while stainless washers are hard enough for the screw to stick over - the countersunk part cannot dent them so even when screw gets stuck, you can still grab the head with pliers and unscrew it. I also upgraded to TORX screws to make these problems go away, we will see how it works 😉

(Ps. I just checked how much these mild steel ones co-st in Toolstation - 1.2 per 10 which makes 24 per 200. I feel even better now - A4 stainless washers are not so much more expensive… well, couple of coffees more 🙂 )
#tiki38 #theseanation #buildingwharram #allelectricboat